As of yesterday my roommate and I have the tank set up for our new fish friends. We waited until the weather cooled down a bit so our new aquatic friends wouldn't boil to death in the heat and did some research on what kinds of fish would do well with our ten-gallon tank limitation. Due to space and university rules, you cannot have a tank larger than 10 gallons in the room which means that goldfish or fish in the goldfish family are unfortunately out of the running for living tank side.

I thought maybe we would be getting a beta fish as is standard for a majority of college fish, but seeing as my last beta fish jumped out of his tank to his doom and my roommate's last beta also met an unfortunate demise here we are.

Photo by t j on Unsplash

With a ten gallon tank, we have quite a few options and we seem to be leaning towards more smaller fish rather than fewer larger fish. I think it would be pretty cool to have a whole little school of fish. The key though is to find fish that will stay little. Anything that can grow up to four inches or larger is not an option. Just because the fish are small now, does not mean that they will stay that way for long.

Even though most fish will only grow to accommodate the size of the tank they live in, the goal is to provide enough space for all of our new friends to live comfortably. This means providing plants, rocks, and other decorations to hide in as well as ensuring that there are just enough fish in the tank so no one is lonely and not too many in the tank to cause sanitation issues. Often-times the more fish you have in a tank the more often you have to clean it, especially if you are reaching the limitations on both number and size.

Here we are with a tank full of water. The heater is set up. The filter is running. In four days we go to get our new buddies.

Pretty soon the experiment will begin to test and see how having fish affects both of our stress levels.